Mocking Blaine
by ImogenW
Summary: Hunger Games x Glee. Blaine takes Kurt's place when his name is read out from the Reaping
1. Chapter 1

_**AN: So this is going to be terrible, warning in advance. I don't know whether I'll keep going with it or not. so yeah :S**_

Sometimes I wonder how the world turned out like this. The famines, the lack of control over our lives, the death and disease and homelessness. The secrets and lies that get told around every corner. How one day you can wake up with a loved one close, and the next day be a million miles away from them, with no certainty of return.

There's a stark contrast as I cross the fence. Almost immediately, the air is cleaner, crisp grass and frost coated leaves whispering past us. Following us, almost. It's not an unusual feeling here; everything anyone does, everything anyone says is monitored, recorded, hidden in records held by the Peacekeepers.

'_Are you, are you__  
><em>_Coming to the tree__  
><em>_Where they strung up a man they say murdered three.'_

I hear his voice as I pass the tree where we keep our weapons, clear and high. The birds stop and listen, as they do every time, and I marvel, keeping quiet.

_'Strange things did happen here__  
><em>_No stranger would it be__  
><em>_If we met up at midnight in__the hanging tree__.'_

'Ahem,' I clear my throat. 'This is all well and good, but if we want to eat, we'll have to do more that sing for our dinner.' Kurt looks up, his blue-green eyes a mix of dark mirth and anxiety.

'We might not be eating our own dinner tonight, Blaine,' he whispers. 'And you know it.' I bite my lip.

'I'd been hoping we could forget about that,' I say, pulling him into a hug. 'It's just like the last five years. We'll be fine.' I feel Kurt withdraw, suddenly stonelike.

'How can you _say that_?' he asks, his eyes suddenly angry. 'This is the _reaping. _It's _complete luck. _You think that every other child that's ever been chosen knew it was coming? That they didn't think "_We'll be fine_" and then the next minute they're being snatched from the mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and friends and _lovers_ with no chance to think?' He picks up his traps, kicking a stump. 'This life-this reaping-these games…we don't know what's around the next corner. How can you say "We'll be fine" when god knows we won't be? No one comes out of life unscathed. Not this life. Not District 12 life.'

'Kurt,' I say, unsure of where to tread. 'I didn't mean to be flippant. I just don't want us to worry about it. If, by the small chance one of us does get called,' I gulped, 'then I want out last morning together to be perfect. No talk of the Capitol.'

Kurt grimaces. 'Fifteen years ago, my mother probably thought the same thing.'

Here's the thing with Kurt-for everybody in District 12, being chosen for the Hunger Games is a nightmare. Parents, friends, children-nobody wants to be picked. No one goes into the Reaping feeling safe.

But Kurt's already lost someone. He was born when his mother was only 15, the product of starvation, poorness and desperation. She sold herself to a wealthy Peacekeeper for six month's rations. Two years later, her name slipped from the lips of the former 'Effie Trinket', and that was the last time she saw her son in person, and vice versa.

'Promise me, Blaine,' Kurt pulls me out of my reverie. 'You've got to promise me.' He's standing above his trap, jaw set, and I can see tears running silently down his face. I stand up, walk over, and pull him into an embrace as the tree above showers tiny droplets of dew upon us.

'Anything, Kurt,' I whisper. 'Anything.'

'Promise me, no matter what, that we'll look after each other,' he looks into my eyes. 'Each other's family, heart and what little else we have. No matter whether I get picked or you get picked or one of our siblings gets picked, or whether we don't get picked at all, we have to try to get out of this mess.' I kiss him softly on the nose.

'I promise, Kurt,' I vow. 'No matter what.'

The mockingjays start flying around us.

'_No matter what.' _They call.

'_No matter what.' _


	2. Chapter 2

Holding the three rabbits Kurt snared as well as a two I shot, we climb through the fence (one that holds no real purpose other than a simple 'This is where District 12 ends') and head to our respective homes.

The Hunger Games. Ironic, really, when we're all hungry.

I live in the Seam, a dirty, dusty, famine-filled strip of coal blackened houses; starving people roam the streets, blackened by the raw hand dealt to them. My mother is a healer of sorts; her remedies are the natural ones, cheaper than a doctor, and done with more delicacy than the Capitol surgeons.

My father works in the mines, bringing in a small wage and coal stained hands, tired feet, and failing eyes and ears. He taught me to hunt when I was no older that seven, but his days of hunting have finished.

I have three siblings-an older brother, and two younger sisters. I had another sister, the oldest of us all, but she died about seven years ago now. That was the start of my family's downfall, the beginning of my father's arthritis and my mother's lapses of judgement that have slowly let us fall lower and lower. We're just about at the cold hard bottom now.

I throw four two rabbits onto the table for Cooper, my brother, to skin when he gets in from trading a deer I caught yesterday, then go to the room I share with my siblings to get dressed into my most formal clothes. Both my sisters are already wearing their nicest dresses, Molly in a pale pink and Lana in purple. What a joke. We're the turkeys, dressing ourselves for Thanksgiving.

'Blaine, sweetie,' my mother calls, the false warmth ringing through the hallways, 'Can you do Lana's plaits, please? She won't sit still and I need to cook yesterday's rabbit up for dinner.' I pull on my bowtie and head to my sister, where, indeed, she won't sit still.

I don't blame her. Her second reaping means double the chances, and while I refused to let her take tesserae, who knows what could happen?

I find Kurt as soon as boys and girls are split into their groups. He's standing with his cousins, blue eyes hard and cold.

'Hey,' I whisper, rubbing him on the back. He turns to me and nods.

Effie Trinket and the mayor are standing on stage. Effie looks put off, as she always does, wearing bubblegum pink clothes and a smile as fake as her hair colour. The mayor is trying to look interested, but I can see his eyes flicking to his daughter, Madge, and back to the ominous bowls of names, one of which has '_Blaine Anderson' _written on dozens of slips of paper floating through it.

Effie steps up to the podium, smiling, and gives a bubbly speech. Haymitch, District 12's only surviving Champion is standing off-kilter on the edge of the stage, bottle in hand.

'May the odds be _ever_ in your favour,' she smiles, picks up the bowl filled with girl names, and with a flourish of her perfectly manicured hands, picks a name off the top.

'Ms Rachel Berry!' she cries triumphantly and I relax as I see my sisters slump forwards, and then I stiffen. I know Rachel. A year younger than us, she works as a waitress at Sal's, making a living for herself and her mother. I hear her mother cry as Rachel steps out-she doesn't have to be pulled as so many do-with her head held high, and walks stiffly towards the stage. It isn't until she's standing up there that I can see her lips shaking.

'And now, for the boys!' Effie calls. My breath catches. Her hand flicks as she pulls out a name. She smiles brilliantly.

'Mr Kurt Hummel.'

He stands up straight. He walks towards the Peacekeepers, and up the road, shaking very slightly. His cousins grip hold of him. That's when I break.

'I volunteer!' I yell, fighting my way to him. The crowd around me turns, stares. District 12 hasn't had a volunteer in over 50 years. Kurt swings around, shaking his head. But I'm not turning around. I'm not letting him do this. 'I volunteer as tribute!' The Peacekeepers take my arms and pull me towards the stage, as Kurt runs at me.

'What the _hell _are you doing, Blaine?' he asks furiously. I crane my neck around as I am frog marched towards Rachel.

'Keeping my promise,' I answer.


End file.
